Lumen Christi Institute

Maimonides on Christianity and Islam
2025-05-08 16:30 - 18:00 (America/Chicago) | Kent Hall, Room 120, 1020 E 58th St. Chicago, IL 60637, Hyde Park, IL
REGISTER HERE
For questions, please email David Strobach at dstrobach@gmail.com.
Cosponsored by the Regenstein Foundation, University of Chicago Medieval Studies Workshop, University of Chicago Divinity School, The Catholic-Muslim Studies Program at Catholic Theological Union, and Seldon Institute.
What did Maimonides say about Christianity and Islam? How would Al-Ghazali or Thomas Aquinas have responded to him?
This symposium will be a thought-experiment in interreligious dialogue.
David Novak (University of Toronto) will begin by explicating Maimonides’ position. Yousef Casewit (University of Chicago) will put on the persona of Al-Ghazali to reply. And Matthew Levering (University of St. Mary of the Lake) will reply as if he were Thomas Aquinas. A conversation moderated by James Robinson (University of Chicago) and an audience Q-and-A will follow.
In biblical times, the religious divide between the Jews and the Gentiles was straightforward: the Gentiles worship a variety of “other gods” (polytheism); the Jews alone worship the One and Only God, the Creator of the universe (monotheism). But with the rise of Christianity and Islam, there are now two peoples claiming to worship the same God as do the Jews. How did Maimonides accept these claims, yet cogently affirm the superiority of Judaism?

A Catholic Vision of Art: Beauty - The Highway to God - A Catholic Vision of Culture in the 21st Century | West Suburban Catholic Culture Series
2025-05-14 18:30 - 20:30 | Ruth Lake Country Club, 6200 South Madison Street, Hinsdale, IL
REGISTER HERE
(Business casual attire encouraged. For questions, please email Marial Corona at mcorona@lumenchristi.org).
Schedule: 6:30 p.m. Drinks | 7:00 p.m. Dinner, Lecture, & Q&A | 8:30 p.m. End
May 14: A Catholic Vision of Art: Beauty – The Highway to God
Sarah Crow (Saint Xavier University | St. Gregory’s Hall)

“In everything which gives us the pure authentic feeling of beauty there is really the presence of God…all art of the highest order is religious in essence”
– Simone Weil

Beautiful art reflects the glory of the living, incarnate God, Jesus Christ, whether or not explicitly religious in subject matter. Art is not only an instrument and expression of culture, but also has a prophetic capacity to “prepare the way for the Lord” and transform the hearts of those who encounter it. This lecture will look at great works of art, both sacred and secular, and demonstrate how they can lead us to God.
SERIES DESCRIPTION
Western culture owes a great deal to Christianity, but Christianity does not require any culture, as a culture, to be built with Christian materials. This does not reflect a weakness or defect in Christianity. It is a consequence of its genius. Christianity can and should inform every human undertaking. In this series, we’ll explore various arenas where human existence is played out and discover how Christianity can transform them. Our point of departure is Remi Brague’s reflection “From What is Left Over,” which takes as its inspiration Pope Benedict’s “The Roots of European Culture.”

The Vocation of the Patristic Theologian: Teaching Nicaea
2025-05-24 15:00 - 17:00 | Lewis Towers, Loyola University of Chicago Water Tower Campus, 111 E Pearson St, Chicago, 60611, United States
This event is open to graduate students and faculty. For more information and to receive the registration link contact gzokal@lumenchristi.org
This forum invites graduate students and scholars of patristics to reflect on the nature of the craft and its relationship to contemporary theological studies, the academy, and church today. A panel of scholars will speak to this topic in reference to the teaching of Nicaea in commemoration of the 1700th anniversary. What does the teaching of this council, its creed, its attendant historical context and reception, communicate about the essential character of the Patristic theologian?
This reception and forum, following the annual meeting of the North American Patristics Society, is co-organized by the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at the Loyola University of Chicago, the Pappas Patristic Institute, Baylor Institute for Faith and Learning, the Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies, and The Lumen Christi Institute.
Featured Speakers
Khaled Anatolios
University of Notre Dame
Lewis Ayres
Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas – Angelicum, Rome
Paul Blowers
Milligan University
Michael C. Magree, S.J.
Boston College
Erin Walsh
University of Chicago

"In the One, we are One": Christian Unity and the City of God - Ever Ancient, Ever New: The Sources of Pope Leo XIV | West Suburban Catholic Culture Series
2025-09-10 18:30 - 20:30 | Ruth Lake Country Club, 6200 South Madison Street, Hinsdale, IL
The West Suburban Catholic Culture Series

Ever Ancient, Ever New:
The Sources of Pope Leo XIV
REGISTER HERE

September 10th:
“In the One, we are One”: Christian Unity and the City of God
Schedule: 6:30 p.m. Drinks | 7:00 p.m. Dinner, Lecture, & Q&A | 8:30 p.m. End
LECTURE DESCRIPTION
In the City of God, Augustine eloquently speaks about “two cities” that are divided by their two loves. In God’s city, there are angels and humans united in their love of God. In the earthly city, there are demons and humans united in their devotion to their own wills. For Augustine, the city of God on earth is the Church, but in this life it is a church which intermingles citizens of the two cities. It is a church on pilgrimage which longs to be fully united and secure with the heavenly city of God. But even now, in the Eucharist and in the miraculous intercession of the saints, the Church can achieve a foretaste of the unity it will experience in heaven.

(Business casual attire encouraged. For questions, please email Margaux (Killackey) Taffet at mkillackey@lumenchristi.org).

SERIES DESCRIPTION
Since the election of Pope Leo XIV on May 8, 2025, Catholics and non-Catholics alike have wondered what kind of a Pope he would be. Perhaps the best perspective on that question may be found in two of his most consequential decisions, both of which were highlighted in his first remarks from the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
First, at the age of 22, Robert Prevost entered the Augustinian order. As “a son of St. Augustine,” he is guided by the spirituality of that great 5th century Western Doctor of the Church whose thought has shaped Catholic doctrine and philosophy since that time. Augustine lived in a time of intense political upheaval as the mighty Western Roman Empire was falling. Old things of seemingly invincible splendor were collapsing. And the new thing of Christianity was transforming the world at an astonishing pace.
Secondly, in choosing the name Leo, our new Pontiff consciously placed himself in the line of several consequential popes of that name. The most recent, Leo XIII, Pope from 1878 through 1903, is celebrated for his seminal writings on contemporary Catholic social doctrine. The best known of these, Rerum Novarum, references the “new things” facing the Church and the world in the wake of decades of technological, political, intellectual and religious revolution.
The new Pope’s first remarks following his election hinted at the trajectory of his papacy by tapping into two deep wells of patristic and papal teaching. In this, the sixth season of the West Suburban Catholic Culture Series, our speakers will explore some of the most significant writings of St. Augustine and Pope Leo XIII in light of the influence they may have on the new Pope’s priorities. Like both of these men, this Pope faces a time of roiling social change. Like them, he faces a world in which old things are passing and new things are afoot. These sources may help us understand how Pope Leo seeks to carry the Church forward in a world such as ours.

CALENDAR
September 10: “In the One, we are One”: Christian Unity and the City of God
Jared Ortiz (Van Kley Professor of Religion and Department Chair, Hope College; Founder and Executive Director, St. Benedict Institute at Hope College)
October 15: Our Hearts are Restless: Augustine’s Confessions and Modern Anxiety
Scott Moringiello (Associate Professor in Catholic Studies, DePaul University; Scholar-in-Residence at St. Gregory Hall)
November 12: Unless You Believe, You Will Not Understand: Augustine’s Theory of Education
Erika Kidd (Associate Professor, Catholic Studies, University of St. Thomas)
March 18, 2026: On New Things: Rerum Novarum and the Foundations of Catholic Social Thought
Speaker To Be Announced
April 15, 2026: The Kingdom of Heaven is like a Mustard Seed: Development in Catholic Social Thought
Speaker To Be Announced
May 13, 2026: The Gospel’s Response to the “Fatigue of Living”
Speaker To Be Announced

A History of the Impossible: Carlos Eire on They Flew
2025-10-29 17:30 - 19:00 | Swift Hall 3rd Floor Lecture Hall, 1025 E 58th Street, Chicago, IL
REGISTER BELOW
5:30 Lecture | 6:20 Response | 6:45 Audience Q & A | 7:00 End
This event is open to the public, registration is required, please contact William Hurley at whurley@lumenchristi.org for any questions.

This event is co-sponsored by the University of Chicago Divinity School and the Workshop on the Early Modern World.
Levitation. Bilocation. Witchcraft. Demonic Possession.
Europe in the early modern era was simultaneously the site of Kepler, Newton, Copernicus–and of eyewitness accounts of levitating saints and nocturnal witches’ sabbats.
In his history of the impossible, award-winning historian Carlos Eire mines the firsthand accounts and archival evidence of the miraculous and demonic. How did an increasingly skeptical and scientific culture account for events deemed impossible by its leading intellectuals? What does this say about the supposed boundaries between the natural and supernatural that marked the transition to modernity?
In this lecture, Carlos Eire will explore the major themes of They Flew and ask: what makes something impossible? And is there more to reality than meets the eye?
University of Chicago Divinity School professor Kirsten Macfarlane will offer a response and engage Eire in a conversation about They Flew. Audience Q&A will follow.

This project is made possible through the support of In Lumine Tuo: Expanding and Sustaining the Catholic Intellectual Tradition Nationwide (grant #63614) from the John Templeton Foundation and the generous support of our donors.

Faculty Colloquium on They Flew by Carlos Eire
2025-10-31 09:00 - 12:00 | The Catholic Theological Union, 5416 S Cornell Ave, Chicago, IL, 60615, United States
This event is by invitation only. For more information contact Geoffrey Zokal gzokal@lumenchristi.org
The Lumen Christi Institute will host a faculty colloquium with Carlos Eire on his book They Flew: A History of the Impossible. Remarks will be given by Richard Kieckheffer (Northwestern University) and Barbara Newman (Northwestern University) with responses followed by Carlos Eire. The colloquium will be moderated by Father Andrew Summerson.

Faculty Colloquium with Bernard McGinn on In the Eagle’s Wake
2026-04-10 09:00 - 12:30 | University of Chicago, 5801 S Ellis Ave Chicago, IL 60637, Hyde Park, IL
This event is by invitation only. For more information contact Geoffrey Zokal gzokal@lumenchristi.org
The Lumen Christi Institute will host a faculty colloquium in honor of the prolific work of Bernard McGinn (University of Chicago) and to discuss his new book In the Eagle’s Wake. The half‑day colloquium offers an opportunity both to engage with an important recent contribution to scholarship and to honor McGinn’s long and illustrious career.
A complementary book will be provided in advance to all participants to facilitate preparation for the colloquium.
Initial remarks will be given at the outset of each session by Kevin Hart (Duke University) and David Albertson (University of Southern California), followed by responses from Professor McGinn. Engaged participant conversation will be moderated by Erin Walsh (University of Chicago) in each session.
Following the event, a lunch will be served in honor of Dr. McGinn.
This event is co-sponsored by the University of Chicago Divinity School.
